Golden gears up cycling culture with new bike renting stations

Craig Berkley sets bikes out along the bike path at the Golden Bike Library along the Clear Creek Trail on July 21, 2017, in Golden. The Golden Bike Library has expanded in its second year with three new satellite stations opening soon.

Following the trail of some Front Range neighbors, Golden is gearing up its bike share program.

The city is adding three locations to the Bike Library it created in 2016 in an over-sized shed near the Clear Creek pedestrian/cycling path.

The new bike stations will open in fall at the light rail station near the Jefferson County Government Center, on the Colorado School of Mines campus and downtown next to Parfet Park. These minimalist stations will essentially be bike racks for the city’s fleet of hybrid mountain bikes, each outfitted with a bright-yellow basket.

The city rolled out the Bike Library program in June 2016 on Golden’s Bike to Work Day. The planned expansion is a way to build on the program’s initial success.

“Bike share has been something the community wanted to see in Golden,” said city planning manager Rick Muriby.

The main Bike Library, centrally located at 1010 Washington Ave., attracts 20 users on a slow day and up to 80 riders on busy summer Saturdays, Muriby said. During the five months the library was open last year, it drew 1,666 unique riders, many of whom took multiple rides, and Muriby said the library is tracking for more users this summer.

Plans to open the new bike stations this summer were delayed by technology, Muriby said. The new stations will feature the pilot program of an automatic locking system that is still under development. A lock on each bicycle will connect with the bike racks via a wireless Bluetooth connection activated by an app on a rider’s cellphone. It’s a user-friendly and more economical alternative to the expensive B-cycle technology used in Denver and other large cities. The B-Cycle model also comes with bikes too heavy for a foothills community and a price tag too large for a small city like Golden, program officials said.

“We want to have our own bikes that have lots of gears to help us go up and down hills,” Muriby said. “…(The B-Cycle) model was prohibitively expensive for a city like Golden.”

Carl Neidert takes a bike for a ride to make sure its in proper worker order at the Golden Bike Library along the Clear Creek Trail on July 21, 2017, in Golden, Colorado. (Seth McConnell, The Denver Post)

Golden is operating the Bike Library with a $200,000 two-year federal grant. The digital locks will cost about $15,000, but Muriby said the city is saving money by implementing a system that uses regular bike racks and regular bikes. He believes the program, even with the new technology and additional bikes, will come in under budget.

The wireless locks, developed by a technology company in Taiwan, will not be available until the end of the summer. Muriby said city officials hope to test the locks and then open the new stations in September.

Once implemented, the stations will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year round. The Bike Library is currently open 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Thursdays to Sundays from April to October. Staff members check out bicycles, share safety tips and provide directions and recommendations to users.

The library has 45 bikes in its inventory and 15 additional rides will be added before the new stations open.

“Biking is very popular here,” Muriby said. “There are lots of mountain biking options, and lots of road bikers come through town for Lookout Mountain. There’s a lot of bicycle enthusiasm here.”

Though he admitted that many renters are tourists looking for a scenic ride to the Coors Brewery Tour, Muriby said staff members talk about their “regulars,” locals who use the rental rides to get around town. He hopes the new stations at the college and the light rail stop help make commuting more accessible.

He also hopes the expansion will boost ridership among the university community.

“I think it’s a good connection with the transit system,” said Gary Bowersock, associate vice president of operations for the Colorado School of Mines. “We have a lot of visitors to campus with conference groups, so I think there will be quite a bit of use, not only for those groups, but also by faculty, students and staff.”

Bike rentals are free for the first two hours and then cost riders $10 per day. Customers can keep the bike overnight, if they choose, for an additional fee.

Other communities are eyeing the program, hoping to learn from Golden’s successes and any failures before they implement their own bike share systems. Muriby said he has received calls from communities in Canada, Indiana and Idaho.

“We’d like to keep growing the program and getting more people on bikes,” Muriby said.